The present invention relates to computer systems and, more particularly, to a computer system having a portable portion and a stationary portion.
To have both the portability and processing capability, a typical computer system may be divided into two portions, a portable portion and a stationary portion. Usually, the portable portion contains only a part of the hardware and software of the computer system, which are able to perform certain functions independently from the stationary portion.
The stationary portion contains the remaining part of the hardware and software of the computer system. Being connected together, the portable portion and stationary portion can perform the full functions desired by a specific user.
FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary computer system including stationary portion 100S, and portable portion 100P, which can be a notebook computer 136. Stationary portion 100S includes n input/output devices (I/O 1, I/O 2, . . . , I/O n) and docking station 108. The docking station includes interface circuit 113, and connection logic 132.
When notebook computer 136 is connected to stationary portion 100S via link 134, it can provide control signals to interface circuit 113 via connection logic 132. Thus, the notebook computer can control the operation of the docking station and input/output devices.
One disadvantage to the arrangement shown in FIG. 1 is that all peripherals connected to the stationary portion are unusable when the portable portion is removed from the computer system. The peripherals may represent substantial investments.
Another disadvantage to the arrangement shown in FIG. 1 is the processing capability of the computer system is limited by the capacity of the portable portion. For example, notebook computer 136 can be used to collect scientific or business data in a remote site from the stationary portion. When the notebook is connected to the stationary portion, docking station 108 does not provide additional processing power to the process the scientific or business data.
Still another disadvantage to the arrangement shown in FIG. 1 is that the connection of the portable portion is limited to the vicinity of the stationary portion.
With the development of computer systems, the structure and function of the stationary portion is becoming more and more complex.
Therefore, there is a need for a computer system whose stationary portion can independently run without the portable portion, and whose portable portion can both operate the stationary portion and perform diagnosis or performance analysis for the stationary portion.